Greg Franks, president of Manor Management Services, which manages Smith Tower, said during Tuesday’s call that the company applied for federal assistance, as well as local assistance, to help preserve the nearly 60-year-old building.
A nonprofit coalition of local labor unions, Mid-Columbia Manor, built the iconic downtown building in 1966 as low-income apartments for seniors. It has 170 studio and one-bedroom apartments, ranging from 380 to 700 square feet, according to its website.
Manor Management Services secured $21 million in federal aid from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Housing and Urban Development to go toward the roughly $50 million project, intended to bring the building up to current seismic and safety standards, as well as to renovate it.
As soon as the federal funds were frozen, the project came to a standstill.
“I don’t know what’s going to happen,” Franks said. “It’s going to take partners, such as the federal government, to preserve that housing.”
Franks’ team applied for a local affordable housing tax credit to help restart the project, but he said that’s not enough.
“We have too big of a hole to continue to move forward,” Franks said.
The future of the building isn’t clear at this point.
Franks said it’s difficult for Manor Management Services to get insurance to cover the building at this point. It doesn’t meet current seismic standards and has fire safety issues.
“It’s a beautifully strong, organized-labor-built building,” Franks said. But he said his company is counting on those committed federal funds.
